Monday, September 10, 2007

Apple has indeed crippled the iPod touch. No iCal event entry.

Yep. Apple has done it again. They have intentionally crippled their product, for no good reason. Initially we thought there was no iCal calendar event entry functionality on the iPod touch because of a missing button on its iCal screen. Then we thought we had jumped to an erroneous conclusion, because Apple specifically said this in their iPod touch description of the Multi-touch interface:
iPod touch features the same revolutionary interface as iPhone. Built to take full advantage of the large 3.5-inch display, the multi-touch interface lets you control everything using only your fingers. So you can glide through albums with Cover Flow, flick through photos and enlarge them with a pinch, or zoom in and out on a section of a web page. And iPod touch features a touchscreen QWERTY keyboard perfect for browsing the web in Safari, searching for videos on YouTube, finding music on the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, entering calendar events, or adding new contacts.
It turns out we were right the first time, and Apple was in fact misleading us. An astute reader has pointed out to us that Apple has now changed their description:
iPod touch features the same revolutionary interface as iPhone. Built to take full advantage of the large 3.5-inch display, the multi-touch interface lets you control everything using only your fingers. So you can glide through albums with Cover Flow, flick through photos and enlarge them with a pinch, or zoom in and out on a section of a web page. And iPod touch features a touchscreen QWERTY keyboard perfect for browsing the web in Safari, searching for videos on YouTube, finding music on the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, or adding new contacts.
Why Apple continues to do this type of stuff, I just don't understand. Whatever the reason, the end result is that I will not be buying either the iPhone or the iPod touch any time soon. Perhaps I'll bite when Apple comes out with a bigger capacity iPhone (in Canada) or a non-crippled iPod touch. This is too bad for Apple, as I probably would have bought the iPod touch now if it weren't for this iCal restriction (as well as the lack of several widgets and the Mail application), and then bought an iPhone to replace it later once the iPhone was upgraded.

[Update 2007-11-12]

iPod touch software update 1.1.2 adds iCal event entry. Hooray!